We all have different music we seek out when we are in a particular mood. When you’re itching for a certain song, piece, or genre, take a second and think: what is driving you to that music? Nostalgia, passion, love, sadness, joy, weariness?

What a piece of music means to one person might be completely different to another. One person finds a song to be deep, meaningful, and sacred to his/her soul; another enjoys the same song because it is “hummable”; another person finds it shallow and trite. Can one be right, and the others wrong? Can two, or all three be right at the same time? Does the composer of a piece, or the performers, have any say in what is being expressed, or is beauty simply in the ear of the beholder? Is there a universal beauty? Does it even matter what the composer or performer is expressing? Does it matter what the audience response is? If a composer’s intention doesn’t evoke the correct response in the listener (even if the response is a positive one), is the piece a failure? Does the composer even matter, or is s/he just a random collection of carbon-based molecules that happened to arrange dots on a page in a way that causes musicians to move their limbs in a certain matter which causes air to vibrate which tickles some weird nerves in our ears?

I could go on, but I’ve said enough. Being a human is confusing at times. At some point, we need to let go of all that, embrace our humanity, and just dive into what lifts us out of the muck and mire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7etjqZmAGs

If you live anywhere near where  I do, the rain is really coming down today!

Art imitates life; you can find all kinds of musical attempts to capture the spirit of a good cleansing storm. You got your gentle snow storm, your generic winter storm, and then you got your classic thunderstorm, compliments of Gioachino Rossini and his opera, The Barber of Seville. Like most Italian opera, it’s light and elegant.

FLEDERMAUSMANN!

(The word “Batman” doesn’t really work in German.)

There’s a famous opera by Johann Strauss II called “Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”). One of these days, I hope somebody writes “Batman: The Opera”. I’m not holding my breath, though. At least we have a fun overture from Strauss to tide us over.